NEW YORK: Facebook profits tripled to $642m in the first quarter on a 72-percent surge in revenues helped by strong gains in mobile users and mobile advertising.
Demonstrating that it is successfully following the shift from personal computers to mobile devices — which a year ago appeared to pose a huge challenge for the company —Facebook said that advertising revenues were up 82 percent to $2.27bn from a year ago.
Of that, earnings from mobile ads comprised 59 percent of the total. One year ago, mobile ads were less than one-third, and three months ago they were 53 percent. After announcing $21bn in ambitious acquisitions during the quarter, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the results show the company nevertheless is “staying focused on execution” and carefully improving the company’s core business. “These results show Facebook’s business is strong and growing, and we’re in great position to continue making progress towards our mission.”
Total revenue, which also include payments and fees, was up 72 percent year-on-year to $2.5bn. Helped by a strong jump in operating margins, net profits rose from $219m to $642m.
Earnings per share came in at 25 cents; operating earnings per share jumped to 34 cents.
Facebook users continued to increase and shift over to mobile devices, underscoring the need for the company to grow its revenue there.
Total daily active users were up 21 percent from a year ago to 802 million, and of them mobile users totaled 609 million, a year-on-year gain of 43 percent. Monthly active users meanwhile rose to 1.28 billion, one billion of them on mobile.
AFP
